Family-focused fraud scheme unveiled during a sales representative's trial

by: Julia Kyles Aug 22, 2017

Practices expect pressure to buy when a sales representative shows up. What they probably don't expect are sales pitches from someone who's related to one of their providers. But that's just one way Global Compounding Pharmacy, a Haleyville, Ala.-based company, encouraged its sales representatives to boost sales.

The details came out during the trial of Bridget McCune, who recently pleaded guilty to "participating in a conspiracy to generate prescriptions and defraud health care insurers and prescription drug administrators." According to the press release from the U.S. Attorney's office for the Northern District of Alabama, Global executives:

Hired relatives of prescribers to work as sales representatives.
Encouraged sales reps to volunteer at practices in order to gain access to patient files "and push Global’s products to patients."
Frequently instructed employees to obtain high-dollar prescriptions that woud be filled by Global.

That was one part of the plot. Global also engaged in such activities as splitting up drug quantities in order to dodge billing safeguards, automatically refilling patient prescriptions and waiving co-payments to encourage patients to accept unnecessary refills.

Global Compounding Pharmacy and its employees were snared in OIG's nationwide July 13 fraud takedown.

Blog Tags: anti-fraud

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